


Being for the Benefit of Mr. Wright

by Dorinda



Category: The Matador (2005)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Canon Bisexual Character, M/M, Missing Scene, Repression, Sex Club, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:50:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorinda/pseuds/Dorinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened during the rest of that night in Mexico? Oh, you know...drinking, shooting, fleeing, stealing, lying, sexing, smoking...business as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being for the Benefit of Mr. Wright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EntreNous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/gifts).



 

In hindsight, Danny should have known his luck was finally starting to change. After all, if Julian hadn't touched his ass at that precise moment, Danny wouldn't have jumped and stumbled against him, Julian wouldn't have moved backward, and the incoming bullet would have drilled right through Julian's head.

But Danny didn't see that at the time. He was kind of distracted.

What happened was this:

They'd talked till maybe a quarter after four, sitting on the end of the hotel bed. After all his fear of taking that step, psyching himself up to actually ask Julian to kill someone--not just kill someone, but kill someone for _him_ \--it was a surprising letdown to hear Julian say no. No. _No?_ Since when did a professional, a "facilitator of fatalities," turn his nose up at a simple job and a second mortgage's-worth of hard cash?

He just sat, sick with fear and sleeplessness, letting Julian's refusal sink in. He heard the explanation, but it didn't really register, past the ache in his head and the tightness in his throat. Julian grinned and kept flicking at his lighter. Danny had nothing else to say; he'd reached up with one last, desperate hand, and Julian had talked to him like he was waving instead of drowning.

"All right?" Julian thumped him on the knee and got up, heading for the door.

Danny didn't look after him. "Don't forget your jacket," he said blankly, and wandered out to the balcony again, avoiding the puddle of beer and broken glass. The safety wall was cool in his hands and against his forehead, and he couldn't help imagining what it would be like to fall. Of course, he would never. Never, even if for just a second it pulled at him, the final answer to his final failure. He wouldn't. But he couldn't help--

"Here." Cold glass against his arm made him start, and Julian was there with an open Corona that dripped with condensation. "Get that down you." He clinked his bottle against Danny's and tilted his head back in a long swallow.

Danny sipped obediently, watching Julian drink. He did that the way Danny'd seen him do everything else: with single-minded absorption, rapt and unselfconscious. The id on two legs.

Julian came up for air, burped, and gave him a sharkish smile. "The bathroom sink is almost out of beer."

"I'm sorry. I'm not a very good host." Danny waved his bottle vaguely. "You want the rest of mine?"

" _Drink,_ " Julian scolded. "You're behind already. And you could use it."

So Danny drank. He leaned on the wall, looking out over the lights of Mexico City, and couldn't see any hope of anything. All he saw was the bottom of the bottle, rising and sinking like the moon.

After a while Julian's fingers touched his, freshly cool and damp, tapping his wrist encouragingly, and Danny noticed that his bottle was suddenly heavy again, nearly full. Oh, well. He didn't need to tip it quite so far, so that was nice.

"Julian," Danny said. He kept looking out over the city, watched his beer rise and fall, but he could feel Julian's arm right next to his on the wall, his listening silence. "Julian. What am I going to do?"

Julian shifted, nudging him with his elbow. "You're going to drink up."

"I'm serious." Danny lowered his forehead to the wall again, breathing shakily through a lightning bolt of pain at his temples.

"Yeah, so am I. And don't puke there--it'll reach terminal velocity by the time it hits, kill some tourists."

"I won't." Danny thought about sucking at his beer without straightening up, but couldn't be bothered. "Since when are there tourists out at four-thirty in the morning?"

He heard Julian swallow beer and smack his lips. "City that never sleeps, right?"

Danny closed his eyes. "That's New York."

"If you know your way around, _every_ city is the one that never sleeps." Julian's voice was dark with satisfaction.

Never sleeps. Just like Danny. He couldn't imagine ever sleeping again--come to think of it, he couldn't imagine doing much of anything again. Except maybe going home with his tail between his legs, the light at the end of the tunnel revealed as a Mack truck. Or a school bus. He shivered. After a while, he felt Julian's arm settle heavy across his shoulders. "Hey, boy. Come on." Julian shook him, cajoling. "Come on, now."

"Jesus God," said Danny. He hadn't felt this bad, this empty, for years. Two and a half years, to be exact.

"Finish your beer," Julian said, in the tone of voice someone else might use for chicken soup.

"Alcohol is a depressant," Danny said into the wall.

"This is medicinal." He tugged, and Danny, helpless, followed the pressure, raising slowly and achily back upright, beer bottle dangling between two fingers.

He looked at Julian, half-lit by the room's yellow glow spilling from the glass door, scruffy and self-satisfied. There must have been something in Danny's face, though, because while Danny just looked at him, Julian cleared his throat and got fidgety, smoothing the side of his hair, the front of his shirt. He tried to smile, patting Danny's shoulder. "There you go."

"Julian--"

"Another?" Julian's eyes darted from Danny's face to the beer and back again.

"Uh--" Danny thought hard. " _Are_ there any more?" He couldn't remember how many he'd wedged into the sink in the first place, but surely they were getting low.

Julian spread his hands in a _ta-da_. "No."

Danny shook his head, not for any reason in particular. He looked past Julian to the line of balconies along this floor, dark and silent, the occupants surely sound asleep. He wasn't drunk enough to be incapacitated, but he couldn't seem to muster enough energy to lift his beer.

Julian patted Danny's shoulder again and let his hand settle there, fingers tapping restlessly. Danny felt the surge of hopelessness rising again and ducked his head; he'd cried far too much in his life, what with one thing and another, and he tried hard not to get started now.

"Fuck," Julian said softly, his accent rounding the word off, smoothing its edges. He squeezed Danny's shoulder and swayed him back and forth. Danny took a step closer, still following the pull, and let Julian wrap him in an awkward hug that smelled faintly of beer and strongly of smoke. Danny's arms hung at his sides, and he was enveloped.

"I don't know," he said into Julian's collarbone. "If I can't get this job, I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Shh shh shh."

"I'm not asking you to change your mind. It's just--I can't see a way--"

"I know." Julian rocked him a little. "S'gonna be okay."

"Yeah?"

Julian rubbed his back. "Yeah."

Danny sighed, willing himself to believe it. Willing himself to relax. He took a cleansing breath and let it out. There was something undeniably good about the contact, something it fed--but still, it had been a long time since he'd had the ability to let all his nightmares get cuddled away. And his social conditioning was still alight, holding strong down underneath. He felt kind of ridiculous. Julian, though, seemed to be giving it his all, shifting closer, holding tighter, his long warmth fitting snugly against Danny even down to their legs, none of that careful A-frame back-thumping hugging Danny had been raised on. Danny still had the bottle in one hand, but he lifted the other and gave Julian a tentative pat on the waist.

"Oh, yeah," Julian murmured, his hand on Danny's back moving more slowly now.

Wait a minute.

"Julian?"

"Mmm-hmm," Julian said, his voice deep. He moved his thigh against Danny's.

" _Julian_." Danny's hand on Julian's waist pushed now, not so tentative, and broke them apart. Julian looked down at him, blinking.

"What are you doing?" Danny asked, trying to keep his voice from squeaking.

"What?" Julian insisted.

"What do you mean, what? Were you--uh--" Danny groped for a good phrase. 'Hitting on me' seemed a little prim. And Julian had been handsy with him since they'd met. It was just...how did you describe a comfort-hug that all of a sudden turned into something significantly less comforting? Not to mention comfortable?

"Hey, look," Julian said, reasonably, leaning on the wall in a tired slouch. "You're sad, I'm drunk. Or maybe vicey-versey. It's goddamn late. We have that nice comfy bed in there. What's the problem?"

Danny stared. His brain locked up, trying to isolate and focus on just one of the billion available problems. He tried a few consonants but couldn't turn them into words, which he supposed counted as sputtering.

"You'd feel better. I'd feel better. It'd be good for you," Julian went on. "Clear your head."

"Clear my head," Danny repeated slowly.

Julian grinned, his eyes flicking down and up in one of his habitual once-overs. "Among other things."

And he reached out to plant one hand on Danny's hip, fingers curving around behind to touch his ass. Which is when all hell broke loose. Or at least _some_ hell did--there was still room for more.

Danny started at the touch, stumbled over one of his slippers and pitched forward, losing his grip on the beer bottle. Julian moved to support him and the beer both, shuffling backward. There was a pop and a crack, and all at once Julian's arms were around Danny again, too tight this time, and they went sprawling to the tiles. Danny ended up underneath, the breath being smothered out of him.

"Hey," he managed into Julian's chest. "No means no."

In return, Julian gave a sharp hiss, like Danny had never heard before, and the hair prickled on the back of his neck.

"Go," said Julian, raising up just enough, shoving Danny with one hand. "In. Gogogo. _Go_!"

Danny half-rolled, half-scrambled into the room, Julian crawling in behind him; as they moved there was another pop, and a tuft blew out of the carpet.

"Julian?"

"Out." Julian was on hands and feet now, clumsy but fast, snagging his jacket and heading for the door.

Danny's mind was blank. He felt thick, like his head was underwater. "Would you--"

"No."

"Can I--"

" _No_."

"But my--"

" _Danny_!"

Danny obeyed on autopilot, crawling then kneeling then up and walking. He cast a worried look back at his laptop, but Julian grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out into the hall.

"Follow me close," was all he said, and he moved off down the hall, fast but not running. Danny shoved one foot more firmly into its slipper and trotted after him. They got to the closest stairwell and hurried down--but only one flight, then back out into that floor's hallway, through twists and turns to another stairwell, down a flight, crossing to a whole _different_ stairwell (or was it back to the first one?), down two flights--

"Was that a _gun_?" Danny puffed, working to stay at Julian's side despite the slippers and his own mounting sense of unreality. He'd originally intended just to ask Julian something along the lines of "What the heck," but he'd had some time to think during all the stairs.

Julian didn't answer, leading Danny across to an unlabeled stairwell (this one dank concrete service stairs) and down as fast as possible, his boot heels clattering. Danny concentrated on keeping up, until Julian burst through a door at the bottom of the stairs and paused inside a dim, quiet hall--no carpet here, just concrete, and the low rumble of big machinery not far away.

"Jesus, Julian, we should've called the police!" Danny said. "Or at the very least, the front desk! What are you doing?"

Julian stood in shadow with his back pressed to the wall. Danny didn't think he was going to answer. But: "By the time you'd reached anyone on the phone, it would've been too late," he said, as if telling Danny the time. "The cops would've found you dead on the floor. Or maybe on the ground below the balcony, like you'd jumped. Very dramatic."

Danny's mouth opened and closed a couple of times; he was having trouble getting enough air. He felt like a stranded goldfish. "Me?" he managed at last. "What did _I_ do?"

Julian didn't answer, moving off down the hall into the deeper dark. Danny followed numbly. His chest felt tight, and the shuffling of his slippers sounded enormously loud; Julian's boots suddenly seemed to be making no noise at all.

The hallway led them into a damp, cavernous area, a dehumidifier roaring in one corner, banks of industrial-sized washers and dryers looming in the darkness along the walls. Rolling carts piled with ghostly white linens cluttered the middle of the room. Danny could just make out a door with an exit sign glowing _Salida_ on the opposite wall (a little blurred at the edges without his glasses), but Julian didn't head for it. He slipped between the carts, winding his way over to a dark niche between two of the washers where one machine was missing, and abruptly crouched there, his back braced against the bare wall. Danny hunkered down next to him.

"Julian."

"Hmm?" He sounded absent, for God's sake, like he'd been thinking of something else. What else could anyone be thinking of at a time like this?

"Tell me what is going on here," Danny said, working hard to keep his voice from shaking. "Please tell me."

Julian shrugged, Danny feeling the movement more than seeing it. "That asshole."

His tone was vaguely disgusted, the sound of a man complaining about the guy in the next cubicle who takes other people's lunches from the office fridge. It didn't help--Danny was so out of his depth that he could feel waves closing in over his head, and his inner voice was approaching a dog-whistle shriek.

He took a big yoga-class breath and tried to swallow with a throat gone all sandpapery. "Uh...which...asshole is that? Exactly?"

Maybe Julian could hear that Danny's head was about to split right in two, neatly down the middle, because at last he started talking.

"You know I had another job this afternoon."

Danny concentrated. Had there even been a 'this afternoon' before he found himself hiding in a hotel laundry at a quarter to five in the morning with moisture from a dirty concrete floor seeping through the bottoms of his slippers?

"Right," he finally said. "You were supposed to...uh." How did Julian think of his assignments? Sorry, can't make it for lunch, I gotta whack a guy? "Facilitate him?"

Julian sighed. "Last-minute gig. No time to sketch it through, you know?"

And Danny nodded without meaning to--he kind of _did_ know. He'd had crucial business meetings spring up on him like a deer jumping across the road, no slack for planning or strategy. Sometimes you just...

"Had to wing it," he said.

"Yeah. Anyway, guy had two bodyguards. Better than a squad, whatever, but it was a middle-distance deal, and the angle wasn't the best. And I--" He stopped himself and said, lower, "Second guard must've seen the scope flash and got a look at me. Tracked me down. Took him long enough. Fucking _asshole_."

"Wait a sec." Danny looked over at Julian, frowning. Julian's face was indistinct in the dark, half-turned away. "This was the one you wanted my help with."

"I said I was sorry!"

"No, I meant--I couldn't, it's true. I couldn't. But I just meant, if I had been able to help you, distract the bodyguards like you asked...."

"I don't know. Might've been fun." Julian sounded sulky. "Or maybe he'd have remembered your baby face, found you in half an hour." He started flicking his balky lighter again. The sparks dazzled Danny's eyes.

Danny's breathing felt easier. Something about Julian's matter-of-fact grumpiness was soothing. This must've happened to him before, maybe a hundred times. All Danny had to do was follow his lead, and Julian would...do something. Fix things.

Admittedly, Julian didn't seem to be in a hurry about it. The lighter went snick...snick...snick. A small, fitful flame sprang up at last, and he bent his head to it, the cigarette crackling to life.

"Oh, hey." Danny pointed up at the wall. "It just occurred to me--I don't think you're supposed to smoke in here."

No answer, just the constant heavy rattle of the dehumidifier.

"Seriously...I think there's a sign."

Still nothing. He could smell second-hand smoke building up in their little niche.

"I mean, if _no fumar_ means no smoking, which I think it does. It's probably bad for the laundry. Or maybe they use solvents."

Julian turned his head fully toward Danny at last and took a big long drag, flaring the tip bright orange. Then he blew a stream of smoke delicately into Danny's face, taking his time, the air saturating thick with it.

Danny coughed and waved both hands. "Hey," he started, irritably--and then considered what he'd seen of Julian's face in the glow of lighter and cigarette. "I think you've got oil on the side of your head. Is there oil on this wall? I must be ruining my shirt." He twisted around to look as best he could. It was just a T-shirt to sleep in, but he always figured, why not take good care of your things? Waste not, want--

"Nothing wrong with my head." Julian was looking away again.

Danny scowled. "Yes, there is."

"Isn't."

"It's not _debatable_ , Julian. It might not be oil, but it's something. Excuse me for mentioning it." He caught a momentary glint of the lighter still in Julian's hand, and he snatched it, shook it, and flicked up the dying flame. "Here." He swiped one thumb across the dark patch on the side of Julian's face and held it in the light. "See?"

His thumb gleamed with a bright red smear. Huh. Red. What was red? His car's transmission fluid--did these machines have transmissions? He thought they might, but he'd never gotten too involved with the inside of the washer at home. Why would it still be so wet on the wall? Except it wasn't on the wall, because it wasn't on Danny's shirt.

It took his mind a minute to stop rambling around and catch up: this particular red was for blood. Julian's face had blood on it, and now Danny's thumb did too. _Blood_ on his _thumb_ , _Julian's_ blood, cooling on his skin. He couldn't help it; he let the lighter go out and waved his bloody hand, frantically, as if to dislodge a spider.

"Did you get _shot_?" he yelped in a strangled hush.

Julian just smoked in the dark, looking away.

"Oh my God." The hysteria was rising again like floodwater. "We've got to call the police. And an ambulance." He started to get up, wobbled, and crouched back down. "But he might be out there. Is he out there? What are we supposed to do?"

Julian shifted, opened his jacket and rummaged. "We'll 'ave a drink," he said, his voice flat and cheerful. He tipped his head back, swallowing, then poked the flask at Danny.

"I don't know how to phrase this," Danny said, as politely as he could, ignoring the flask as Julian wiggled it invitingly. "But do you think you should really be drinking whiskey right now when you've been _shot in the head_!"

"It isn't whiskey."

"I don't--" Danny clenched his teeth. All the cleansing breaths in the world wouldn't help. "I'm just not quite sure what kind of liquor goes best with a bullet in the brain."

"Tequila."

Danny blinked, took the flask, sniffed at it. He'd be darned. He was used to flasks in the movies always having whiskey in them. Bourbon or rye or some Sam Spade thing.

"And there's nothing wrong with my head." Julian looked away again, exhaling smoke.

"Except that you got shot in it," Danny said. Panic and frustration were battling it out, and panic was taking a surprising beating. "Some people find that a problem."

Julian didn't seem inclined to continue the conversation, so Danny, instead of shoving him inside one of the giant washers and twisting the dial to "mangle," abruptly tipped the flask up and drank. The tequila seared along his tongue, fumes filling his throat and nose. He swallowed and coughed, and Julian pounded him on the back.

While Julian was taking his turn at the flask with much less drama, Danny racked his brain. First aid, first aid, what did he remember. Boy Scouts had been a long time ago. And they hadn't really covered bullet wounds _per se_. If Julian needed a cake baked inside an empty tin can on a campfire, now _that_ he could handle.

Finally, he groped on the floor for the lighter and lit it again with some difficulty. "Let me see." Julian didn't react, so Danny reached out and turned Julian's chin to a better angle. It was definitely blood, in a sticky, palm-sized patch on Julian's temple and cheek, and Danny swallowed against another surge of wooziness.

Julian handed him the flask. "Go on. You still look peaked."

Danny took it automatically, then hesitated. Inspired by a mixture of whiskey-flask detective movies and hazy Scout memories, he leaned out to pluck a scratchy white washcloth from the closest laundry basket, poured a bit of tequila onto the cloth, and reached out hesitantly to dab at Julian's cheek. Julian didn't react one way or the other, just smoked. Very Rambo, Danny thought, gritting his teeth at the blood coming off in smears.

He had almost convinced himself he'd end up uncovering a cinematically perfect round bullet hole in Julian's head, the bullet lodged in some magical Ripley's Believe It Or Not place between skull and brain, making Julian even more of a freak of nature than he was already. But all he found, once most of the blood had been wiped away, was a shallow gouge in Julian's temple maybe as wide as a pinky fingernail.

"Huh," he said, neatly blotting around the scrape. "Looky here. I thought you said there's nothing wrong with your head."

"There isn't." Julian dragged deeply on his dwindling cigarette.

"I think this should count, though. If we were counting the many, _many_ things wrong with your head." He hated to put a bloody washcloth back in the basket for some unsuspecting worker to find in the morning. He wondered if the bloodstain would even wash all the way out. Maybe they could use a presoak, like for grass stains.

Julian took the flask back and drank again. The flask tipped up high, and he sucked at it like a goat being bottle-fed at the petting zoo. That didn't seem to be enough, so he opened his mouth wide and shook the flask upside-down over it. Danny didn't see that it did any good, but maybe there were some leftover tequila molecules floating in the air.

"Now can we get out of here?" Danny asked, as Julian stuffed the flask back in his jacket.

"What, don't you like it?"

"Well..." Danny fished for something positive to say. "I guess, as a hiding place, it's very handy...."

This close, and with his eyes better adjusted, Danny could see a dreamy smile curl Julian's mouth. "My last visit, had a three-way in here with a maid and a busboy. Fucking brilliant."

Danny closed his eyes in a very long blink, opened them to see Julian peering at him apologetically. "It's not like I have a lawn to mow or anything," Julian said. "Guy's gotta have a hobby."

"Of course."

The awkward silence that followed--awkward on Danny's side, anyway; Julian still seemed lost in happy nostalgia--was broken by Julian lighting another cigarette off the old one and inhaling with slow pleasure.

"I thought it was a maid and a bus _girl_ ," he continued. "The bussers and barbacks wear the same uniforms, you've probably seen 'em. And there was this luscious piece, small and smooth, curly hair, big eyes, incredible. Skin like fucking caramel. We all ended up in here, and what do you know?" His next inhale had a definitely lecherous quality. One eye flickered in a wink. "Adds to the fun, reaching in the box to find a toy surprise. Eh?"

"Oh," said Danny, heat surging in his face, neck and ears included. "Sure."

"I tell you, you haven't lived until you've--"

" _Okay_ , yeah," Danny interrupted, a little desperately. "Sounds nice. But, uh--like I was saying: what now?"

"Hm?"

"What's the next step? Where to?"

Julian's smile faded, and he blew a puff of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Where to," he said, like he was trying out a new Spanish phrase.

Danny waited, watching Julian intently. Surely inside that brain--as odd as it might sometimes have been--were strategies upon strategies, dangerous ideas and tactics Danny had never even heard of. He was eager to hear the plan. It reminded him of his high school baseball team: when the coach gathered them around and told them in a gruff, no-nonsense voice how they were gonna do it, you just stopped worrying and trusted him and _did_ it, and you got out there and kicked some ass.

Danny dearly wanted to get out there and help the team kick some ass, so he could go back to bed.

"Right, let's go," Julian said suddenly, rising from his crouch. He took one more decisive pull on his cigarette and then tossed it on the floor as he started toward the exit door.

Danny rose, his knees aching, and followed hesitantly, glancing back at the smoldering half-smoked remains. "Hey--you really should put that out."

Julian's back disappeared through the _Salida_ , and Danny sighed, returned to the cigarette, and carefully smashed it under his damp slipper.

* * *

They did some high-quality sneaking, if Danny was any judge, through staff-only corridors into another dim room full of cabinets, counters, and massive padlocked steel doors. Julian knelt down by one of these and went to work on the lock, whistling quietly. Danny leaned against the wall and looked back and forth between Julian and the entryway, appointing himself watchman. Of course, what he'd do if a guy with a gun leaped in after them, he didn't actually know.

The lock clicked, and Julian yanked the big door open with a satisfied huff. Cool air flowed out. Julian disappeared inside, and just as Danny was wondering if he should follow--could there possibly be a secret escape tunnel inside a walk-in fridge?--Julian popped back out, smiling, carrying something. It was shaped like a two-foot high bullet, sort of, blue-steel metal with a black top. Julian set it carefully on the central countertop, regarding it with the cherishing awe of a new father.

Danny looked at it respectfully, as Julian began to twist the black part. "Secret weapon?" he asked.

"Margaritas," Julian answered. The black lid came off and Danny saw he was right, the big metal--blender? Storage jar?--full to the brim with frosty-cold greenish liquid. "Special house recipe. They mix up tons of 'em every night, to be ready for brunch."

"Uh..."

"Here." Julian handed Danny the open flask. "Hold steady, now." Using both hands, he carefully filled the flask from the jar, only spilling one drop at the very end that trickled, glistening, down the flask's side. Julian dabbed it off and sucked it from his fingertip.

"Should I even ask how you knew that was in here?" Danny said. He meant it to be rhetorical, but Julian looked at him, finger still in his mouth.

"After the lunch rush," he said. "There was this waitress, had an ass like a Bartlett pear. The dish cart is the perfect height for--"

"Thanks!" Danny's face was burning again, though his ears felt okay this time. "That was hypothetical."

Julian shrugged and lifted the big jar to his mouth, taking a gulp. He suddenly set it down with a slam, grimacing.

Danny steadied him by the shoulder. "You okay?"

"Ice cream headache," Julian said. He squinted his eyes closed.

"Occupational hazard, I guess," said Danny.

Julian recovered from his trauma and went to poke around in one of the cabinets. Danny's hopes that he'd pull out a machine-gun were dashed when he retrieved a carton of something instead. He poured what looked like salt crystals from the box into his palm, then frowned between his palm and the jar. Whatever the dilemma, he obviously had a bright idea, because he cheered up, reached out, took Danny's hand in his cold one, swiftly pulled it up to lick the wrist, then dumped salt over it. A gulp of margarita, then another lick of Danny's wrist, swiping salt off with his cool tongue.

It was all very quick. Danny, standing frozen, figured he must've had a lot of practice.

"Would you--" He politely withdrew his hand and brushed at his wrist. "Sorry, but would you mind not licking me?"

"Aw, Danny." Julian grinned at him, a roguish pirate with a really big blender. "You're no fun anymore. Maybe you'd like it better somewhere besides the arm."

"Julian--"

"There's always the dish cart," Julian suggested.

Danny's face barely tingled this time; maybe his blushing mechanism had burned out. "Look--I--"

"What now?" Julian asked, patiently. One hand caressed the metal jar, tracing lines in the condensation.

"I just-- Just because your idea of a casual diversion is-- involves-- is always about _sex_ \--" Danny managed to begin, and Julian rolled his eyes.

"Say 'a good fuck,' please, Danny, it'll remind me I'm not hiding in here with my primary school teacher."

Danny cleared his throat. "...I'd rather not."

"Though, mind you, he was a bit of all right," Julian mused, and took another drink. "Here."

The jar looked enormous, gleaming like a silver neon sign. "No, thanks."

"You've had a hard day."

"I have," Danny said. "But they made these for brunch."

Julian looked at his watch. "We're just a tad early, that's all."

Danny eyed the gigantic margarita with an amount of yearning that surprised him. He shouldn't drink directly from it, leave his germs--although, of course, Julian already had, hadn't he, and it wasn't like the rest of the jar would be fit to serve to customers anyway....

He seized the jar and drank, awkwardly, a little of the icy mixture dripping down into his collar. It was tart and smooth and strong, and he didn't cough at all. He tilted back for another sip--but suddenly stopped. "Oh, jeez. I really better not. 'Beer before liquor, never sicker.'"

Julian snorted. "Just because shit rhymes doesn't make it true," he said, and smacked Danny lightly on the back of the head. "Too late, anyway, innit."

That made some kind of sense, actually--insofar as anything made sense tonight--and as a buzzing warmth spread in his chest, he had a couple more drinks, and regarded Julian with a sense of comfortable goodwill.

"Oookay," he said, smiling. "Now we're medicated. What's the plan?"

"Give it," Julian answered, taking the jar back.

Danny looked around the room. "So this is a good, what, a good staging area? We're not going to have to hide in the freezer or something, are we?"

"The what?" said Julian absently, communing with his drink.

"I just don't know what my role's supposed to be." Julian didn't seem to be listening. "In the plan. To stop the--guy. With the gun." Still no attention from that quarter. "I mean, this place must be a good spot to fight from, or whatever, right? A good defensive position? Julian?"

Julian was gazing at his blurred reflection in the side of the jar's bright metal, lost someplace. "Yeah, I don't know," he said dreamily.

"You don't know?" Danny took that in. Surely it couldn't be as bad as it sounded. "Then...why are we here?"

"This is where they keep the margaritas," Julian said, still soft and hazy, and he buried his face in another long, savoring swallow.

It was leaning toward getting as bad as it sounded. But maybe they just weren't communicating. He tried again: "You have to tell me how we're going to approach this. It isn't something I usually do."

"Mm-hm."

"Mm-hmm _what_?" Hello, there was that panic on its way back up. He'd thought it might have actually gone away, for a minute there.

Julian gazed down into the depths of the margarita, mesmerized and silent.

"Come on, give me a hint. I mean--I have no idea what I'm doing." Danny spread his hands. "Sorry if you're bored. I know stuff like this must happen to you all the time."

A tiny smile twitched the corner of Julian's mouth, but Danny wasn't sure if he'd really heard him. "So...what do you normally do?"

"Normally," Julian said at last into the jar, his voice a faint echo. "I shoot people."

"Well, I know, but I mean more specifically." Danny leaned closer, ready for instructions.

"I don't get shot at," Julian said.

Danny waited. There was a long pause. "All righty," he said at last. The feeling of pulling teeth was metaphorical, but he felt a sudden urge to make it literal. Every single tooth. "But...what about when you do?"

"I do not _get_ shot at," Julian said, and now Danny thought his eyes looked unfocused, his hands gripping the jar tight and strained.

"But--"

"And I certainly," said Julian, the brittle hush of his words stopping Danny's protests cold, "as sure as ever mother-living father-grabbing holy Jesus fuck, do not _get shot_."

Danny would sooner have touched a bare electrical wire, but he found he couldn't stop himself: he reached out and took hold of Julian's shoulder, tentatively, and pushed and pulled it, like trying to wake someone who was sleepwalking on the edge of a cliff. Julian's body swayed easily--too easily, boneless and unreacting.

"Julian!" Danny tightened his grip and stared helplessly at him. This had gone over the edge now, for sure. Danny bit his tongue. All that evasiveness, it hadn't been for fun, and ignoring his bullet graze hadn't come from Rambo. Julian wasn't being mysterious, or stubborn, or a casual badass. He had just...faded away. It was like he was hardly there, despite his body taking up all that space next to Danny in suede jacket and ankle boots and gold jewelry.

He squeezed and released Julian's shoulder. "Okay, come on now. Come on. Julian? Are you in there?" But Julian just gazed down into the margarita container like he was watching a lava lamp. Or something nice on late-night TV. "Please," Danny said, hearing his voice rise almost to a whimper. "I can't...handle this all by myself, you know? It's the last thing I could take, tonight of all nights. Or...any night, really."

Julian shifted his weight, and for a second Danny felt a wash of relief--but all Julian did was take a sip and lower the jar, neatly wiping his lips and mustache dry with the back of one hand. Then he settled in again.

"If you won't listen to reason..." Danny went on, but his voice shook, and he had to talk louder to keep it steady. "If you won't, then, then--you know what? You'll be standing here off in la-la land when some guy with a, a bazooka or something comes in here to finish the job, and you'll get your head blown off, blown _clean off_ , and I've, frankly, I've never been trained for that kind of thing, I mean, you'd have a-- _neck stump_ \--and I am not _ready_ for that, do you hear what I'm saying?" He shook Julian's shoulder again, quick and unsteady as a shiver, and said intensely, thin and high, "I am trapped in a hotel _kitchen_ in Mexico _City_ in my _pajamas_ and _I have no idea what I'm supposed to do about it_!"

His mind must have whited out for a minute, because all he could do after that appeal was shut his mouth tightly, staring hard at Julian, willing him to stand up straight, to lead the way and take over and _do_ something for God's sake. But he didn't. He didn't, and there was a noise at the door, or maybe there wasn't, and Danny jumped and flinched so hastily it made his head throb. He felt on the verge of the kind of panic he'd never truly felt before, the solid old-fashioned kind where you ran screaming down the street, maybe waving your arms. It seemed as good a solution as any.

But--surprisingly, there was still a part of him, and who knew where it came from, that was able to stay standing there and not give in to the screaming/arm-waving school of thought. For one thing, why not just paint a target on your head and have done with it. But for another thing...okay, he had no confidence whatsoever when it came to something this wacko, but he couldn't just leave Julian there, floating in his weird tequila headspace and ripe for the killing. There had to be something Danny could do. Granted, he was no assassin, but...he was who he was, and there had to be something he could do that Julian couldn't do for himself.

There had to be something _Danny_ could do. Huh.

"Hey--" he started, and tried to swallow. His mouth and throat were so dry they hurt, and his muscles felt tight all over. With a slow breath in, he gently tugged the jar away from Julian--whose gaze followed it blearily, like a kitten whose eyes have just opened--and took a sip. Then he spoke again, not soft, not loud. Matter-of-factly.

"Hey. Julian. You know, I was at this workshop once. Business workshop, and a pricey one, too, I don't mind telling you. But Phil--he's my business partner, Phil--he's always on about, you know, 'competitive positioning,' and I see what he means, you don't want the business to stop evolving, fall behind."

He took another sip, swishing it around his teeth before he swallowed. "Anyhoo, this workshop turned out to make a heck of a lot of sense, and you know how rare that is. Orrr, maybe you don't. What with the, uh, different career path and-- Look, so, the point is, our group leader spent a lot of time on negotiations. And the thing he said is, everybody has to negotiate, to get what you want. It doesn't just get handed to you. So there's a lot at stake, and it's easy to--you know, to get scared, because you want it so bad. But, and he emphasized this part, that's where you hamstring yourself, negotiating from fear."

Julian blinked, his brow furrowing a little. Maybe he was coming out of it, or maybe he was just feeling margarita-deprived, but Danny kept talking, leaning casually against the counter. "The point was, no matter how much you want something, you can't let that freak you out or else you've beaten yourself before you even start. You have to negotiate from a place of strength. Even if you don't think you have one, you do. You just figure out what it is, and start there. That's the only way."

He had one more sip, taking his time, and when he lowered the jar, Julian reached for it. Danny held on to it, though, and met Julian's eyes. "He had a PowerPoint slide," he said gravely. "All in caps."

Julian drew a breath, cleared his throat, frowned, and tugged the jar to him. "He had a what?"

Danny smiled. "Of course. You don't know how to get a mortgage, Lord knows you'd have no concept of PowerPoint. Lucky guy."

They handed the container back and forth a few times; every time Julian forked it over, Danny almost broached the subject of a plan again, but instead he let out a breath and drank up. Until, that is, he had finally re-found that glow in his chest, the comfortable tequila warmth radiating out like a cartoon sun. Then he didn't have as much trouble opening his mouth and saying: "So, just a hypothemical, um, imaginary question: if you were at that workshop, okay, and they asked you what your place of strength was, what would you tell me? I mean them?"

Julian took a discriminating sip, concentrating, like he was doing a special Giant Margarita Tasting. "An actual place? Like, not that spiritual inner strength mumbo-jumbo bullshit."

"Sure, let's say no on the jumbo bullshit," Danny agreed. He didn't think Julian would thrive on Creative Visualization. "It's fine to use something a little more littleral. Liter. Al." He worked his jaw.

That dreamy look stole back into Julian's blue, blue eyes--and, not coincidentally, sent a cold bolt of fear right up Danny's spine, almost disrupting his nice warm feeling. But it wasn't a return to freaky contemplation again; Julian's features were still mobile and alert. It's just that he had obviously remembered something nice. Really really nice, it looked like. "In Mexico City? That's easy," he said. " _La Aduana_."

"Feel good about it, huh? Nice safe place?"

"Yeah," Julian said, his eyes heavy-lidded.

"If you were a superhero, it'd be your headquarters?" Danny pressed. The workshop guy had never gone this direction with it, but his specific approach didn't seem to apply too well in this situation.

"Whaddya mean 'if'?" Julian said.

"That's the spirit."

Danny let things ride a few more minutes, watching Julian demolish more than his share of the leftover margarita, trying to figure out what the tune was that had started going through his head, waiting for Julian to click his heels together and set successful events in motion. Danny had wound up the mainspring; now it was time for Julian to strut his stuff. Except stuff kept not getting strutted, and Danny wasn't so relaxed and tequilaed-up that he didn't still feel that tiny pressure point at the base of his skull screeching in the voice of a prey animal.

"Ready?" he asked Julian at last.

"Always," Julian said promptly. Then: "...What for?"

"To _do_ something about it. Find that strength and start negotiating."

"Okay, okay." Julian patted his pockets, ran both hands through his hair. "You're right."

"Wow," Danny said, despite himself. What I did on my business trip, by Danny Wright: I gave good advice to a professional killer.

"You said it yourself: your business has...competitive whatsisfuck, and mine does too. In a pinch, you want to be the one shooting, not the other way 'round."

"Acting instead of reacting," Danny said. He'd seen that one on a PowerPoint slide too.

"Uh huh." Julian bent over, grunting as he fumbled at his ankle, and stood back upright with a revolver in his hand.

Danny couldn't help staring. It wasn't...big or anything, but despite all their talk about Julian's job, Danny hadn't yet seen him with an honest-to-God gun. Thar she blows. "You brought that to my room?"

Julian was fussing with the gun, doing something assassinish Danny had no doubt. He glanced up. "Yeah?"

"You came armed? To apologize?"

"I come armed everywhere," Julian said. "Look, it's my backup, I just wear it. Nothing personal."

"Okay, right. Fair enough." Danny glanced at the door. "You think he's still out there somewhere?"

Julian waved the pistol in emphatic little circles, his brows up, like Danny was being slow. "Of course he's out there. He doesn't know where we are, but he knows we're in here somewhere. So he's waiting."

"Is that what you'd do?"

"I wouldn't have missed in the first place," Julian muttered, but it lacked conviction. "Look, across the street, there's a spot with a perfect view of the three major exits plus the parking garage. Once we left your room, first he'd double-check my room, and then he'd set up over there. While it's still dark, it's a great location." He suddenly sounded a lot less like Robin Hood on a bender, and more like a realtor laying out the pros and cons of a business development.

A thought struck Danny. "You haven't...done a job on someone in this hotel before, have you?"

Julian ignored him--probably for the best--and peered down into the giant bullet of booze. Danny could scarcely believe there was any left, except possibly for the fact that he'd had his fair share and yet he was feeling good and walking upright, rather than being carted away in a coma. "To tomorrow's brunchgoers," Julian said, hoisting the jar in a farewell toast. "Fuck 'em all." He slurped one last drink, _con brio_ , and Danny trailed him to the door.

Now they were back to what felt more like status quo, Danny following Julian's lithe, leather-clad back swiftly out the door and through miscellaneous dark hallways. Julian paused at a big door with another _Salida_ sign, listened, then pushed it open and slipped out into the parking garage, crouching low. It was still dark outside, maybe five-fifteen or so--the sun wouldn't be up for a while yet. That seemed to their benefit, since Julian's path stuck firmly to the deepest shadows, keeping tight up against the garage wall, slithering along behind some trash bins. Danny stumbled, and Julian pulled ahead, ducking around a corner.

"Wait up!" Danny said in a hush, trying to close the distance.

Julian was waiting right around the corner, though he was jittering with the effort of keeping still, the revolver clutched by his thigh. "What's your problem?"

Danny pointed at his poor bedraggled feet, particularly the left one, where his little toe was poking through. "Slippers," he whispered.

Julian glanced down vaguely. "Yeah, they're nice." He moved off along the next stretch of wall, his long legs turning a quick walk into a running stride. Danny hurried, trying to retain the tequila warmth even while his slippers got squishy-wet and filthy with nameless disgusting debris. Wherever Julian was taking him, he hoped it wasn't too far away. His gross-out meter couldn't stand it.

* * *

If Danny had timed Julian's efforts at unlocking and hotwiring the hotel van, he felt it would have set some kind of record, and he felt vicariously proud. They drove slowly toward the exit--the exit, Danny remembered, Julian had said you could see from across the street. See, and shoot full of holes. He touched Julian's sleeve.

"Where are we going?" he whispered.

Julian grinned. "Superhero headquarters," he said in a normal voice. "And he can't hear us from over there, Danny, so take it easy."

"We're actually going to--uh--"

" _La Aduana_ ," said Julian, giving the words a lot of mouth-room as if they tasted good.

Danny whistled. "That's kind of a literal way to use the place of strength."

"What, don't you want to? Mr. No Mumbo Jumbo?"

"No, no," Danny said quickly, "no objections. I just...it's amazing that I could really help, you know, with something as boring as a PowerPoint slide."

"Oh, Danny, come on now." Julian drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, glancing over at him. "I loved it. Your lifestyle...it's fucking exotic."

And the funny thing was, he didn't sound insincere or critical whatsoever. Not an iota. They smiled at each other in the reflected glow from the dashboard. Then Julian turned the dash gauge lights all the way down, motioned Danny to duck, and floored it. They rocketed from the garage, and the squealing tires were all Danny ever could have hoped for in a daring escape.

* * *

The blank, windowless facade off an alley had only a dented metal door with a digital combination lock. Julian pecked at the lock to some jaunty rhythm Danny didn't recognize.

Danny looked over his shoulder. "Is it safe, leaving the van on the street?"

"No," said Julian, with clear subtext: _Duh_. The lock opened and he put both hands on Danny's shoulders, steering him inside.

"That sounded a lot like the answer I didn't want," Danny said, propelled in Julian's grasp. They descended a short and shallow set of stairs to another door.

"Don't look at me, it was your idea." Danny stared at him, wide-eyed, and Julian relented. "The whole point of your little workshop thing is that you're supposed to _negotiate_ from your strong place, yeah?"

"Yeah," Danny said, sure he wasn't going to like this.

"Well--" He tapped a button by a black grille in a quick mixture of shorts and longs. "If we outrun him and he has no idea where we went, this place doesn't do us any good, does it. He'd just be waiting for us back at the hotel. So..."

"We had to leave him a clue." Yep, there was not a lot about it to like, even though Julian was right. Danny soothed himself with the thought that now they had some breathing room while the guy tracked them down, and Julian was bound to think of something clever and save the day, even if it wasn't in time for Danny to get any sleep before another soul-crushing round of work. Phil's message had said he'd try to set up one more meeting, one more hopeless, humiliating meeting--he'd left out the hopeless and humiliating part, but Danny took that as read. He'd have to try again to convince Alejandra to give their company the contract without sounding as desperate as he felt, and she'd politely refuse, and Danny would retreat home and unpack and suck up the consequences of his latest in a spectacular string of failures.

Man, Danny was getting himself depressed all over again. For a while there, the tequila and adrenaline and panic had almost let him forget.

At least Julian seemed much more chipper. With a buzz, the inner door swung out, and he guided Danny in with a hand on the small of his back.

A hallway, lit with bare bulbs hanging from wires, stretched out in front of them. Reddish light glowed from archways on either side, and shadows moved indistinctly down at the end. Julian said something in Spanish that Danny didn't catch, and Danny suddenly noticed a man with a dark crew cut sitting on a stool just inside the door, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Julian handed him some folded money and spoke a little more, rapid and confident; he nodded languidly at Julian, looked Danny over without even hesitating at the slippers, and waved them on.

Danny followed Julian down the hall, doing his best to avoid patches of pooling water on the concrete floor. He could hear a jumble of noises, both amplified and ordinary, talk and music and something louder and rhythmic he couldn't make out at first.

"Is this a nightclub?"

"Something like that." Julian slung his arm over Danny's shoulders this time, and took him onward.

The air felt different as they reached the end of the hallway, warm and humid, thickening with cigarettes and marijuana and incense and people. The noise built, and underneath the music, the loud, rhythmic sound clarified; Danny figured it out just as they turned the corner.

Ahead of him in this first room, flickering on a big expanse of bare wall, was a porn film. Not a DVD or even a videotape, either; he heard the telltale clattering of an actual projector. The...actors and actresses?...intertwined heartily, ten feet high, the top of the frame bending and distorting onto the edge of the ceiling.

A dirty movie theater, Danny figured for a second, although there weren't any banks of seats, or ordinary chairs, or, for that matter, any people standing around watching it. It just beamed out into the empty room like an X-rated Welcome Wagon. Maybe the whole place was empty; maybe all the distant music and noises were from other rooms with other movies. After all, it was the wee hours on a weekday, so no surprise if there weren't any other people.

Then Julian, cozy arm still around him, opened a wood-lath door and took him into another room. And oh, there were the people. The naked, naked people. Except for the ones wearing boots, or a hat, or leather straps, though they still looked naked enough to him. They grappled lazily among hanging sheets of plastic, or writhed eagerly from wooden crossbraces fastened to the wall, or touched themselves in what looked like a human-sized birdcage while someone else watched from a low-slung, well-padded armchair. And there were other naked activities, as well as other open doors, colored lights and candelabra, and a mélange of sounds beneath the music and the film soundtrack that now made perfect sense.

Danny, working on not looking much of anyplace in particular, contented himself with shooting a glare at Julian. Of course, of _course_ , asked to summon up his place of strength, his heart and spirit's safest refuge, Julian Noble picked a hardcore underground Mexican sex club.

Julian seemed to feel Danny's gaze--no wonder, Danny felt he was staring hard enough to melt a pinpoint in a steel girder--and glanced down at him before looking back at the extremely naked room. "Nice, huh?"

Nice is not the word Danny would have used to describe it. If he were going to describe it, which he definitely was not. He kept looking at Julian, for want of a better place to look. Julian was smiling--not a lecherous smile, either, but a genuine, happy, comfortable beam of a smile, like a tired businessman coming home after a hard day in the rat race, or a big kid in a completely degenerate candy store.

"It certainly is something," Danny finally said, truthfully. Julian took it as a compliment, slapped his shoulder, and led him along the wall to an overstuffed red leather sofa, where he slouched down with a sigh and patted the spot next to him.

Danny sat. And immediately, he wished he hadn't; from this new angle, he caught sight of a suspended harness with someone in it, and someone else standing next to it, working industriously away at...with...in...up to....

He looked away, fixating on a window completely blocked on the outside with wood painted matte black. "Do you suppose I could have another drink?" he asked Julian carefully in an undertone, his voice sounding far away.

He eventually felt the flask touch his hand and seized it, swallowing, savoring the familiar margarita taste, though it had warmed slightly from the heat of Julian's body. That window looked well-protected, he decided, using thick and sturdy boards rather than garden-variety plywood. Possibly another layer of soundproofing, as well. That would explain why none of the music or movie or...other noises had been at all audible from the outside. He sipped again.

"All right?" came Julian's voice in his ear, and Julian's hand on his for a turn at the flask, but Danny was presently unable to let go. There was a moment where Julian pulled, then he hesitated; Danny didn't look over to see what he was up to. That was some nice paint on that window, a solid, velvety ebony with no thin patches. Good workmanship.

"Oh," said Julian at last. "Yeah. Here." Danny felt Julian's body move, the cushions shifting as he got up. Then Julian gripped Danny's shoulders and Danny followed, as usual, letting Julian reseat him on a wooden chair facing the sofa instead. Julian settled back in and propped one ankle on the other knee.

Danny looked across at Julian. More interesting than the window. In the combination of low, colored light and flickering candles, he looked mysterious, even devilish, the gray in his dark hair glinting silver, necklace and rings and watch glowing like they were red hot.

"Eh," Julian said, shrugging. "You're better off facing this way, anyway. They're good at it and all, but at the end of the day, fisting can get pretty boring."

Danny took one more bare sip and handed the flask over. "Yes. Uh. I'll take your word for it, okay?"

Julian drank, licked his lips, and let his head rest back. He didn't seem to be watching anything in particular, his gaze roving slowly across Danny and elsewhere, soaking it all in. In turn, Danny let his eyes unfocus, and to his surprise, he yawned. The constant jabs of adrenaline, spike after spike of it, must finally have been ebbing, no matter his current surroundings. The extra warmth and the white noise from the mixture of sounds kind of helped, as long as he made sure not to focus on anything--and he had a sneaking suspicion that the occasional drifting haze of pot smoke wasn't hurting either. He slumped forward and rested his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists.

"How long?" he asked after a while. Then, as he saw Julian looking musingly past him across the room at--who knew what, but Danny could guess the general category--he hastily corrected, "I mean, how long do you think we'll have to wait?"

"Ah, who knows," said Julian, settled down into the couch like a guy ready for a full day of TV football.

"You mind if I ask what we're doing, then? In the meantime?"

"Waiting." Julian's face brightened, looking at someone off behind Danny, but then he seemed to come to himself and shook his head with regret, mouthing what looked like _No, gracias_.

"Don't let me keep you," Danny muttered.

Julian pulled his gaze away from something obviously very interesting, and focused on him. "You gotta admit, it's obvious we're not having our own fun," he said, waving a vague hand between them. "We're going to draw all kinds of attention."

"It's rough," Danny said, "being the life of the party."

"The wrong kind of attention," Julian snapped. "If it weren't for the fact that Ramiro obviously let us in without a problem, they'd think we're fucking narcs."

"Or not-fucking narcs." Danny felt very daring all of a sudden.

"Exactly."

"So? What do you want me to do about it?" Danny asked, partly scoffing and partly curious (and more than partly nervous). "Take my clothes off?"

Julian reached for his cigarettes. "Don't get me started," was all he said before he set to flicking his lighter again. It sparked and sparked, Danny watching with idle curiosity, but it never quite flamed up. Finally Julian stuffed it back in his pocket with a few muffled swear words and got up to light his smoke from a candle in a nearby wall bracket. He flopped back down on the couch, inhaling like he had a personal grudge.

Danny shifted, the chair complaining beneath him. "Do you suppose there's anything helpful I can do while we wait that doesn't involve nudity?"

"Sitting right where you are is good," Julian said. He bent forward and tugged at one of his own pantlegs, checking the zipper on his boot, and Danny knew without looking that he had readied his revolver. "While it looks like I'm talking to you, I can keep an eye out for anyone coming in after us."

"You think he'll make it in through the front?" Danny said, stricken with an urge to look back over his shoulder. Then he remembered some of the other shenanigans going on back there, and contented himself with staying just as Julian had positioned him.

"Probably not." Julian eased his neck back and forth, sank back on the couch, and fell into a reverie. Danny, not as comforted as he could have wished, sat stiffly in his creaky chair and tried as hard as he could to feel like he belonged there. It was tough, given all the enthusiastic noises he was working to ignore, and the occasional person who passed nakedly through his field of vision.

Julian suddenly dropped the rest of his cigarette and leaned forward to grab Danny's forearm. "Up up," he said under his breath. Danny, going cold, abruptly stood; Julian took him unceremoniously by the hips and positioned him between his spread knees. Danny stumbled into place, one hand finding Julian's shoulder for balance.

"What's happening?" Danny asked, as quietly as he could. His back was crawling with gooseflesh.

"Cocksucking," said Julian, peering around Danny's waist. "As far as anyone just coming in could tell."

Danny's grip tightened on Julian's shoulder, the leather jacket warm and soft. "And is someone coming in?"

Julian flexed his hands on Danny's hips, fingers matter-of-factly brushing his ass, though this time Danny didn't jump, or stumble, or so much as twitch. "There's a shadow coming through from the front hall." He leaned in close and lowered one hand slightly toward his ankle holster, his forehead against Danny's stomach, his breath warm through the thin cotton pajama pants. Danny clenched his teeth against a complicated mixture of rising fear and sudden, lancing excitement. On the one hand, now was definitely not a good time. On the other hand, if you didn't get a little...stirred up, shall we say, from being surrounded by naked people having various wonderful if alarming times, and being comfortably manhandled and...God, breathed on...by the most maddening and fascinating stranger ever to offend you in a bar...then...then...

Danny lost his train of thought as he tried desperately, but subtly, to shift back just a bit from Julian's mouth. Man behind me with a gun, he reminded himself. Bang.

There was an increase in noise somewhere behind Danny, a peaking eddy of casual Spanish greetings and conversation. Julian perceptibly relaxed, and he lifted his gun hand back up to Danny's hip again. "Regular patron," he said quietly, and Danny flinched at the accidental momentary brush of Julian's lips on the p sound.

He took a hasty step back, sliding out of Julian's easing grip, and found refuge in exasperation. "This is ridiculous. People actually come to a...a place like this at five-thirty in the a.m.? Don't they have homes to go to? Don't they ever sleep?"

Julian smiled up at him infuriatingly. "Third shift, maybe?"

"City that never sleeps, yeah, yeah," Danny said, and plonked back down on his chair, leaning awkwardly forward, avoiding Julian's eyes.

* * *

There were two more false alarms in quick succession after that, leaving Danny twitching with suspense, persistently half-hard, and complaining uncomfortably about the early-bird sex crowd. Julian seemed calm enough, if increasingly spacy; a couple of times, Danny had to call him repeatedly to get his attention.

"Here we go," Julian said yet again, and he pulled Danny to him with casual ownership. Danny looked up at the ceiling, drawing a deep breath of smoky air. By now, he'd taken to resting both hands on Julian's shoulders, and he could feel the prickle of Julian's hair against his bare arm as Julian peeked out around his body. Danny wanted the gunman to come in so it would end somehow, and he wanted the guy to get lost and drive in circles so it would keep on happening.

Julian's hands tightened, his thumbs burning spots of fire on the points of Danny's hipbones. "Okay," he said quietly, drawing it out.

Danny's breathing sounded very loud in his ears. "He's here."

"He was," Julian said, leaning sideways and lifting his chin in a signal to someone. "He must've popped the outer door code, but Ramiro didn't hit the buzzer inside."

"Thank God for Ramiro," Danny managed, bracing himself on Julian's shoulders as his knees wobbled a bit.

"God and the peso," Julian said, still speaking so close to him, that plosive p still causing trouble.

"Will he be waiting out front, then? Do you think? Or--is there a back way?"

Julian gave a long sigh--a long, especially warm sigh that made Danny convulsively clench his hands. "Sort of."

Danny tried to concentrate. "Uh. Sort of? Which?"

But Julian didn't answer, just slumped further forward until the top of his head butted against Danny's waist, rumpling his T-shirt up.

Danny shook Julian's shoulders cautiously. "Hey," he said, keeping his voice scrupulously even. "Don't...go anywhere now, okay? Just tell me what we're gonna do. Or--" he laid a hesitant hand on the back of Julian's neck, cool and somehow defenseless under his palm. "Maybe you could start by just telling me what you'd do next if you were him. Back door?"

Julian's hands slid down from Danny's hips, dropping away--thankfully, only dragging the pajama pants down a half an inch or so, nothing crucial. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back, out from under Danny's touch, looking up at him blearily.

"Isn't there a Power Slide for this part?" he asked, and Danny puzzled over that for a second before it clicked.

"PowerPoint," he answered, but quietly, because Julian hadn't sounded at all sarcastic. "And maybe--maybe now's the time we stand on our, uh, place of strength here, and negotiate."

Julian's mouth quirked bitterly, and he stood up, only escaping the couch's gravitational pull with great effort.

"Seriously. He's after you for kil--" Danny stopped himself and said instead, "He's angry at you for what happened to his boss, right? So why not try talking to him. Reasoning with him. Nobody's paying him to...take care of you. This doesn't have to be personal."

Out came the flask again, and Danny waited his turn with honest impatience. It was thoroughly warm now, fiery and sour, but he drank greedily.

"There's kind of a back way," Julian said, taking one more nip and putting it away. "There's one you can get through but can't see, and one you can see but can't get through. He probably doesn't know that. It's the only spot that's not sealed up like a fucking bunker. It'll take time, but he'll find it."

"Can you talk to him through it?" Danny asked.

Julian gave a lackluster shrug. His entire body was sagging, and his gaze flicked past Danny and around the room without the mellow alertness he'd had before. "Don't see why he'd listen to me."

"We'll make him listen."

A small twitch that might have been a smile moved the corner of Julian's mouth, but if it really was there, it was just as quickly gone, and he turned away. "C'mon."

He led Danny through more rooms, some with actual DVDs or videos playing to accompany the activities, some furnished with equipment and accoutrements but no people, and one where three people had fallen asleep in a nest of beanbag chairs, tangled together like a depraved pile of kittens. They ended up in a bathroom with a few stalls and half a dozen urinals, the humming fluorescent lights a shock to eyes adjusted to a cozier ambience. Julian closed the door and pressed the flimsy doorknob lock.

"Won't anybody else need the men's room?" Danny asked, squinting in the glare.

"They'll use the women's. Trust me, they'll be happy to. It's much nicer in there." Julian flicked off one of the two banks of fluorescent tubes and flattened himself against the shadowed wall--a move Danny hastily copied--and they peered in the direction of the window in the back. Must be the one Julian had said you could see but not get through: it wasn't boarded up, but it was formidable, not tall but very long, covered and divided by chunky metal louvers. Danny thought he could see wire mesh on the other side, but the louvers didn't gap much. He smelled actual fresh air.

"You said he'll find it," Danny whispered. "Can he shoot through it?"

"Maybe. At certain angles. Never tried it myself."

Danny raised his eyebrows mockingly, and Julian added defensively, "I usually only come here for fun."

"I can tell," said Danny. "Now: how do we motivate this guy? What would get him to listen?"

"The muzzle of a .38."

"I'm serious!"

"A .45 might be even better, for the intimidation factor, but you work with what you got."

"Julian. Will you please focus?"

"Look, face it," Julian said. "His only thought in the world right now is how much he wants to blow my balls off. He'd only listen to anything I said if he abso-fucking-lutely had to. And in our biz, 'have to' means 'gunpoint.'"

Danny considered it. He actually for-real considered it in his planning, which is how he knew he was completely down the rabbit hole, goodbye cruel world. Just like pre-meeting strategy sessions in his day job: what does the client want, what does he need, what moves him. High-status branding? A price break? Firearms? Let's give it a whirl.

"You said there was a spot you could get through but can't see," he said at last. "Could you get the jump on him there?"

Julian tilted one hand back and forth, apathetic. "Maybe. If he stops in the right spot. Be better if I had a rifle. I'd get up on the roof, wait till he came around--"

"This gunpoint is for negotiating, Julian. Not for shooting. Okay? Talk yes; shoot no. Remember our approach here: this is nothing personal."

"Feels plenty fucking personal," Julian growled.

Danny wasn't even fazed by Julian's surly-dangerous voice this time. He was busy thinking. "What's the right spot? Where would he need to stand?"

"Close to the window." Julian sounded bored now, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "Looking down at it, since I'd be coming out over his head. And I'd need to be able to make a bit of noise."

The gears in Danny's mind whirled, meshed, and clicked, showing him a picture of how it could work. How it surely _would_ work. He felt eager, ambitious, the guy calling the plays, the way he used to before the bad times and the layoff.

"All right," he said. "Here's the plan. You get ready at the other exit. He'll come around and find this window. And I'll get him where we want him, so you can pop out and make a deal."

Julian lifted his head upright and stared at him. "You will." He didn't sound disgusted. Disbelief, sure, but it did Danny a world of good to hear serious, neutral disbelief instead of, for instance, a laughing jag. Doubt he could handle, hesitation he could handle; maybe not at this morning's awful meetings with Alejandra, no, but tonight, sure. He'd finally remembered that he used to be good at it.

"I will. All I need from you is help with the dialogue. What would you say to him? And, uh--do you happen to know if he speaks English?"

The disbelief was still strong in Julian's expression. "Why the hell would he listen to you?"

Danny smiled. If you acted confident, you could sell your confidence like any other product. "But he won't be listening to me. He'll be listening to you. He never heard you talk, did he?"

"So...you're me."

"Yeah. I mean--staying out of direct sight, obviously, but otherwise, I'm you."

"Who am I, then?"

Danny patted his arm. "You're you too. You're the you with the gun who'll convince him to call it a draw. Right?"

Julian looked at Danny very closely, his frown fading away. "Sure. Right." He stood up from the wall and stripped off his jacket, draping it over the sink. Then he bent to unfasten his boots, coming up with revolver in hand, tucking it in his waistband at the small of his back. Kicked off the boots, peeled off the socks.

At first Danny wouldn't have interrupted him for the world, whatever he was doing--though the secret exit didn't require swimming, surely. But once Julian was barefoot, kicking his boots and socks into a heap in the corner, Danny caught sight of his toenails. His purple toenails, neatly painted, glistening and iridescent. He thought that even yesterday he might have been a little twitchy about that, if only because it didn't seem to fit the rules of who was supposed to do what, and how. But tonight--today, it must be past six by now, heading for dawn--he felt that that was a clue to Julian in a nutshell. Under the expensive manly leather ankle boots? Sparkly purple toes. Not to hide them, but just to have them.

Julian saw the direction of Danny's glance, raised his eyebrows. "Nice color," Danny said honestly. He did like hues that went kind of rainbowy in the light as they moved.

"Great fucking stuff, yeah?" Julian admired his feet, wiggling his long toes so they shimmered.

"Yeah," Danny said.

And they went into a huddle, rehearsing, one of Julian's arms draped easily across Danny's back.

* * *

They had a short script within five minutes, Danny memorizing some likely things to say in both English and Spanish, just in case. His Spanish didn't have to be great, happily, it just had to be on deck in case the guy didn't know enough English to care to listen. Because if there's one thing Danny needed to make him do, it was listen. Just long enough, just till he was in the spot and Danny could give Julian his cue.

"Okay," Danny said at last. "I got it. You ready?"

Julian looked uncomfortable, tugging at the hem of his shirt. His collar was folded oddly in the back, Danny noticed, and he reached out unthinkingly to set it straight and smooth it down. You wanted to make a good impression on the client.

"Just hang on," Julian said. He made a beeline for his jacket and dug the flask out, drinking twice in succession. He handed it to Danny without being asked, and Danny savored a mouthful. There wasn't much left. Before too long, brunchgoers would start making inroads into the jars Julian hadn't pillaged back at the hotel. The sooner Danny could get back there to join them, the better.

Now Julian was fussing with something else, as if he were just stalling. He was removing his rings, one after the other, left hand-right hand, setting them carefully next to each other on his jacket.

"Where _is_ this other exit, anyway?" Danny couldn't help but ask. "Are we going to have to grease you down?"

"What? No." Julian sounded miles away. He padded barefoot into the stall closest to the window, climbed up on the toilet seat, and gestured. Danny stepped smartly forward and braced himself, letting Julian clamber up with one foot heavy on his shoulder and one balanced precariously on top of the stall wall, clinging with his toes. He pushed up a section of drop-ceiling tile and moved it aside, revealing an overhead crawlspace. With a painful shift of weight, he pushed against Danny's support and hoisted himself up inside the ceiling, wriggling further along until only his feet were showing. His cuffs had rumpled up, revealing his bare ankles, one with an empty holster. The shiny toenails added a note of incongruous cheer.

Danny waited a second to make sure Julian wasn't going to come plummeting back down or something, then saluted the decorative feet and hurried over to his spot in the wall-shadows, as close to the window as he could get while still keeping a sharp angle that would hopefully make him a difficult target.

Oh, there, now he'd thought about it, the off chance that the guy would actually be able to fire diagonally through the mesh and the louvers and hit Danny in some crucial spot. But that wouldn't happen, Danny told himself, wiping his wet forehead. He was a reasonable guy, he'd listen to what Danny had to say. They'd win him over. The power of positive thinking. Make friends and influence people.

As a few more hour-long minutes ticked by, though, Danny gave up on the buzzwords and found himself running through a series of linked thoughts, focusing on them like an unwieldy, tumbling mantra. I will do this because I promised. I promised Bean I'd come home safe to her. I promised I'd do my best. I keep my promises, and this is going to work because it will, because it's tried and tested, because people need things and you can convince them you have what they need. I will do this be--

A noise came from outside. To Danny's sensitized ears it sounded enormously loud, footsteps scraping on uneven ground. Step, step, step, pause-- maybe he'd seen the window. In any case, it was time for Danny to do what he promised.

"Hey," he whispered at the window. " _Órale_. Looking for me?"

The footsteps scrambled in a confusion of noise, who knew what, taking cover or whirling around or whatever guys with guns did at this point. Danny stuck to what he knew--keep him talking.

"Don't get twitchy," he said, still very softly. But he surprised himself: despite being soft, the words were not gentle. He heard himself echoing Julian's on-the-job intonation, casually hard-edged.

There were muttered words outside that Danny mostly didn't catch, but he did hear two things: one, they were in fluent Spanish, and two, they were not appropriate for general audiences.

"Oh, c'mon," Danny said, volume still low, giving Julian's predatory grin, slouching into Julian's posture. "Don't tell me you don't speak any fuckin' English."

Footsteps moved closer. "Why speak?" said the man outside, heavily accented. And furious. Not quite close enough, though.

" _Es importante_ ," Danny said calmly, confidently, Julian's voice tasting comfortable in his mouth. "You and me, we're workingmen, _¿sí? Obreros_ , mate, not like our goddamn bosses. We can make a deal."

Another string of Spanish Danny couldn't really follow, though he could tell it wasn't quite an offer for terms. He glanced up and saw that Julian's feet had disappeared inside the ceiling. They were ready.

Danny lowered his voice even more, just about whispering, to make it frustratingly quiet. He said the final phrases he and Julian had hastily worked on, the negotiator's creed, skipping the English to go straight to the Spanish: " _Dígame lo que necesita usted_ ," he said. " _Quizás yo le sorprenda._ " Tell me what you need. I might surprise you.

One more footstep, a scuffing noise, the wire mesh rattled. He was crouching right there, drawn up close by Danny's irritatingly soft voice, all his anger and attention focused inside the window. " _¿Cómo?_ " he demanded.

That was the last word. There was a heavy noise, followed by thumping, scuffling, and stifled talking. It rapidly moved too far away from the louvers for him to hear, though, and the bits he had barely caught at the beginning were mainly educational new mixtures of Spanish curse words. Eventually, the last fading noises gave way to silence. No gunshots, which was excellent. But...nothing else, either. Which was not.

He poised on his toes next to the window for a long time, waiting for an all-clear that didn't come.

Oh, Christ.

Part of him was just about to full-out panic. He could feel it tingling through the roots of his hair and down the back of his neck, like the charged air before an electrical storm. Rows of useless possibilities crowded in on him: if Julian was out there, could he still be alive? Danny would have to check, even though he must be dead, so Danny would have to see him dead, his lifeless dead body, all on account of Danny's clever little _plan_ , and where could Danny go then? Run back to the hotel in his pajamas? The guy knew where Danny's room was, he'd still want to tie up the loose ends--but Danny couldn't switch rooms without his credit cards, which were still in his room, which was more than likely a deathtrap, so he was stuck here in slippers, surrounded by exuberant sexathons, no ID, no passport, no way to call the, the Embassy or the Consulate or whatever, and he'd promised Bean he'd be okay, and there was still an angry Spanish-speaking guy with a gun out there somewhere--

Part of him, however, was still coasting on being Julian. And this part said out loud through Danny's dry mouth, " _Cállate_ , okay? Shut up for a fucking second."

Which it did. The stifling of the budding hysteria was a relief without measure, like that one drink of water that finally settles your stomach after the worst hangover of your life.

So Danny kept on with it, refusing to listen to the fear knocking and scratching and clawing at the back of his head. He carefully retrieved Julian's rings and put them in the jacket pocket. Same with the socks, which he rolled into a neat ball. He put the jacket on, sinking into it gratefully despite the room's warm fug. He pulled out the flask and drank it dry, tucking it away afterward with great care. The boots looked to be too big, but his slippers were clearly not long for this world, so he paired the boots and carried them in one hand. Maybe once he got outside, he could pad them out with the socks.

"All right?" he said aloud. It felt better, hearing it instead of just thinking it. Julian was still lingering in the shape of his mouth, somehow. "Go."

He sauntered out of the men's room, the jacket sleeves sliding down over the backs of his hands. The smoke of various kinds got thicker, the music lifted in volume, the sounds and cries of screwing and sex-play rose to meet him. The trio were still snuggled down in their beanbags, someone's lanky, relaxed arm tossed over someone else's lush thighs, someone's head pillowed on a well-defined chest. Someone was actually snoring. Danny shuffled on through.

A couple of women--morning people, he figured--had started up a game in the next room involving blindfolds. One of them, arms outstretched, laughing, nearly bumped into him; he dodged her, mostly, though her glistening skin left a light smear of oil on the jacket sleeve. He wiped it off with his fingers and caught a spicy scent. Nice. He rubbed it into his hands.

The DVD in the next room had just reached the end and gone to bluescreen, so he hit the "Play" button in passing. Someone called out a thank you in awkward phrasebook Spanish. He waved vaguely.

Still no one in the room decorated with padded leather benches and various paddles on the wall. Maybe Spanking Night was tomorrow.

The arched doorway out of that room was hung with strings of glass beads, and as Danny butted through with his bowed head, he collided with someone. They tangled for a second, and he took a couple of steps back to try to slip free of the unaccountably persistent (though clothed) body against him, but it only followed.

"Is my lighter in there?" Hands poked unapologetically into the jacket's pockets, and it was Julian, alive and gangly and streaked with crawlspace dirt, his toes picking up reflections of different colored lights.

Danny dropped the boots and grabbed him tight by the arms. "Hey!"

Julian looked up, frowning faintly, a dented, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. "Must've lost it in the ceiling."

"Where!" Danny shook him. "The hell! Were you!"

Lines were furrowing on Julian's forehead, his expression pinched and anxious.

"What the fuck, Julian," Danny said loudly. "I mean, what the fuck." He shook once more and then actually pushed Julian away as he let go. "I thought you were fucking _dead_."

"Did you?" Julian folded one arm across his own body, rubbing his other arm, as if it weren't a sauna in there. "Could you hear?"

" _No_ , I couldn't hear. I especially couldn't hear you coming back to the window and telling me you got the job done." He advanced a step toward Julian, who smiled unconvincingly for a moment, like a hopeful contestant.

"Hey, Danny," Julian said, like they were just meeting on a sunny streetcorner, "I got the job done."

"Yeah?" Danny moved in one more step and shoved Julian's chest again with the tips of all ten rigid fingers. "You scared the _shit_ out of me, you careless motherfucker. We had a _plan_."

Julian backed up, willingly or forcibly, giving Danny a careful, searching look. He drew a breath to say something, but didn't say it. Something about his body seemed cramped, hunched, as if someone that tall and that well-armed could cringe, which was fucking ludicrous.

"Are you hurt?" Danny demanded. He grabbed the front of Julian's shirt in one fist, crumpling it, looking him down and up.

"No," Julian said, a better smile showing up this time, shy and strange.

"You sure? Because last time I got to find out as a nice goddamn _surprise_." He hauled on the shirt, and he must've still been flying on adrenaline and whatever else was souping around in his bloodstream by now, because he felt strong, he felt like a monster, Julian easy to pull and push at his whim. He took a look at the bullet graze, scabbing over fine, and didn't see anything else obvious.

"Nothing. There's nothing." Julian shifted--Danny figured he meant to reach over and feel around in the jacket pockets some more, in his typical disregard for anything as normal and categorized as personal space. But his hands landed on Danny's hips again, bringing that familiar heat.

Danny's face warmed, his ears and neck, his chest, his lungs suddenly on fire. With every breath in he felt like his entire body was expanding to fill the jacket's space, all the space around him, bringing him forward to Julian, seizing Julian's shoulders, demanding, and pressing him down so easily. Julian settled on the padded bench and drew Danny into the circle of his knees again, steadying and protecting. His breath through the cotton was a long, shiveringly hot sigh. His mouth was wet, strong, sparking like an electrical contact. His hair was crisp and thick in Danny's clenched fists.

Danny shoved forward with that new surge of ferocity he still felt, climbing like it would never stop. He would explode into shards, he would crush him, he would take him and have him and lose him. He swore mindlessly, and the words tasted foreign and welcoming and rich in his throat.

One of Julian's hands, broad and comforting, braced the small of his back. And Danny shoved, hitched, and stopped, legs shaking with the effort, lips peeling back over his teeth. "--st'a second, just--" He felt Julian swallow around him, as if in anticipation, felt the caressing brush of the whiskers along Julian's upper lip, and groaned. "Wait, wait, _fuck_."

He tugged hard at Julian's hair, and Julian leaned backward into an easy slouch, eyes dark and knowing, licking his lips, cooler air rushing in and making Danny flinch.

"Just a second," Danny gasped.

Julian let go with one hand and rummaged in his shirt pocket, bringing another cigarette halfway up out of the squashed pack with an expert flick of his wrist. He took it delicately between his teeth and leaned to the nearest candle, smoke rising in a thick ribbon.

"Too much?" Julian said at last, soft and challenging, the cigarette waggling obscenely as he spoke.

Danny sucked in more breaths, the uneven hammer of his heart skipping and refusing to settle. "No. Quiet."

Julian drew in a slow breath and let smoke slip sinuously from between his parted lips. His mouth glistened wet in the flickering light. "'Just cause your idea of a diversion--'" he started to quote, with malicious glee.

"Shut up, _shut up_ \--" Danny yanked the burning cigarette away and flicked it blindly to the floor, pushed him back and down, still so easy under his hands, unzipped him, moved with him and over him until they fit together.

For all his previous apparent cool, Julian was panting in Danny's ear, and shivering minutely against him. Danny pressed their foreheads together and held the back of Julian's neck, until the shivering felt more like trembling, restless and needy. Then he slipped his hand down and took firm hold of Julian's dick, knowing somehow how rough was too rough and therefore just right, making Julian's teeth show in agreement and surprise.

"It's okay. You'll never see me again," Julian suddenly said, soft and hoarse, as Danny stroked him. It sounded--not like an offer, or a request for contradiction, but like a simple fact, like something that had already happened a long time ago. Danny closed his eyes at that, dizzy and flying and strangely comfortable. Julian touched him with a startling and elegant tenderness, perfect for his overstimulated senses, trailing long fingers up and down gently, almost tentatively. But Danny had been primed, and all at once the combination of those killing hands, the helpless huff of breath in his ear, and the danger and power still tingling in his veins, made him stop, grab Julian's hand in desperation, and come over their tangled fingers.

Julian patted his back, and he twitched in another momentary spasm, sucking in a hard breath. "Attaboy." Julian's voice sounded hearty and final, and Danny opened his eyes into a suspicious squint.

"That better not be a dismissal pat," he growled with difficulty from his faceplant on Julian's shirt.

After a moment, Julian's chest rose long and fell fast. "Is that what that's called?"

"Just don't fucking try it." Danny eased over--wincing, everything below the waist twitched and hummed like he'd blown a fuse--and took fresh hold with no nonsense, drawing noises from deep in Julian's throat. He could watch Julian this time, and for a minute he did, but something about the tight-drawn face, the tension hunching up his shoulders, the look of almost fearful concentration--he suddenly felt, perversely, that it was too intimate, something private. He looked away, shrugging the sleeves of the jacket back as best he could, feeling like he could almost blush.

When Julian came, he came quietly, biting his lip, muffling something hard. Given the gleefully open breadth of his extracurricular activities, not to mention all these soundproofed rooms, Danny thought that was strange. When Danny finally climbed up, eased out of the jacket, and stood waiting, just himself again, blinking mildly in the candlelight...for a second, that was even stranger.

* * *

They took the van via side streets and alleys as close to the hotel's vicinity as they dared before abandoning it. Danny thought he would ordinarily have been on tenterhooks the whole time, expecting to get pulled over and hauled away to prison for auto theft, to serve out his time in the tattered remains of his slippers. But he was sleepless and cotton-mouthed and fuzzy and somehow floating, his limbs and muscles all perfectly connected, all aware, and he couldn't seem to be anywhere near decently afraid at the moment.

"Gosh, I could use a nap," he said, padding around a corner.

"I could use a new lighter," Julian answered, sulking. He hadn't pulled out a fresh cigarette until after they'd left the club and its many candles, and unfortunately the van was new enough to have a socket but no lighter, so now he was heading into what looked like a nicotine fit, fidgeting irritably with his rings.

"It was in a good cause." Danny yawned, wide, curling his tongue. Another corner, and better going, not as many pebbles to bruise the undersides of his feet. He glanced sideways. "It went okay, though? Really?"

Julian shoved his hands in his pockets. "It went."

"So what did he say?"

"He listened to reason."

Danny nodded, his neck feeling like a loose couch spring. But after an increasingly uneasy minute, he asked, "What kind of reason?"

"Do you think I fucking shot him?" Julian asked, biting off the words. "Is that what you think?"

"No," Danny said, which, after he said it, he realized was completely true. He'd been listening very closely--very, _very_ closely, panicky-closely, and he knew there'd been no gunshot. And not only did Julian's ankle-revolver not have any fancy-schmancy silencing rig, he knew from TV shows that that was much harder to do than it seemed.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't," Julian said quietly.

"Of course not," Danny said. Julian eyed him, and fussed with his rings again.

They were both eyeing each other, actually, heads turning sideways and abruptly forward again as they kept pace through the wash of morning sunlight. Danny, his mind still a little bit wavy and unmoored, was struck by the way they had fallen into step, despite the differing lengths of their legs, despite the slippers and the boots. And they kept _looking_ , like they couldn't help it, something there of recognition, frustration, fascination, like they were seeing themselves in a funhouse mirror.

"Thanks," Danny said after a while. It felt important to get it out there now, so he wouldn't forget later.

"What."

"No, really." Danny smiled. "I owe you. Big time. I don't think you even realize how much."

"I know it was all pretty much my fuckup," Julian said. "Rubbing it in, that's kind of low."

"Julian!" Danny's shout tumbled into a laugh. "You big jerk. Listen: even if you don't understand, I just owe you, all right? You...I don't know, you'll throw up, but you saved me from myself. I won't ever forget it. Ever. So...take it and like it."

When he next looked over, he saw Julian's return glance, brooding and vulnerable enough to shake him up. Danny almost started asking questions, but in the end he left well enough alone. He'd meant to make him happy.

At the end of that block, Danny rubbed his face and slippered his way across the street, ready to forget everything and grab some sleep. "Hey," he said, to be helpful, "the front desk has matchbooks."

He turned to watch Julian's nicotine-starved eyes light up like it was Christmas, but--Julian was gone. Not across the street, not back the way they'd come, not anywhere in sight. Like he'd melted away. Vanished, without even a proper ending. And at that moment, Danny remembered something: there'd definitely been no gunshot.

But Julian also carried a knife.

Danny stood outside the hotel for a minute, head down, replaying events a couple different ways. He didn't know. He never would know, now.

 _Just consider me the best cocktail party story you ever met,_ Julian had said yesterday, and Danny figured that's what he'd have to do. Except...some things wouldn't make it into the story. Some things, he was already letting recede behind a merciful screen. Mostly.

The lobby floor felt good under his sore feet. He wandered for the elevators, passing unquestioningly through people's stares.

"Señor Wright!" The clerk who'd checked him in waved, and Danny raised a languid hand. But it wasn't just a friendly _Hola_ , apparently, as the young man was trotting toward him.

" _Buenos días_ ," he--Victor, according to his nametag--said politely. "Been out for a run?"

Danny, sticky with sweat and other things, filthy and tired and puzzled and strangely elated, just smiled. "Something like that."

"I have important phone messages for you." Victor pressed a printout into his hand. "Your partner, he kept calling, he said it was an emergency."

"Is he okay?" Danny asked, some of Victor's intensity finally getting through.

"Yes, sir. But he says he got a meeting scheduled for you, one final meeting this morning, and it is very important. He asked me to look out for you personally, and tell you."

Danny glanced at the printout. Then up at the lobby clock. Fourteen minutes to go.

He levitated upstairs, one slipper somehow lost along the way, and shed his clothes like a molting snake. In the shower, one hand worked the toothbrush, one hand scrubbed at his hair--he couldn't even imagine what he'd smelled like. He took two precious minutes to shave, being extremely careful; razor nicks bled like anything, and they'd give a bad impression. Proper clothes, shoes, glasses, laptop; tied his tie in the elevator, the laptop leaning on his feet like a warm and faithful puppy.

Danny Wright, of Garrison & Wright, Inc., stepped briskly and cheerfully (if a little damply) into the hotel restaurant at thirty seconds till meeting time. Alejandra was entering just then as well, and they shook hands and exchanged greetings in English; they'd always had their meetings in English, in deference to Danny the American and his All-American company. She sounded patient, even sympathetic, which Danny knew might very well be pity underneath. She expected the desperation of yesterday.

Oh, who the heck could blame her. Danny would have expected it too. He would have expected it now, even--the stakes were just as high as they had been, and Danny himself was still a little high, come to that. But he didn't feel the old dread coming back, even with the adrenaline trigger of rushing and barely hitting his marks. He just felt...less like himself, maybe, as well as more like himself, his years-past self and his very new self. And a little mixed up in the selves, still, obviously. He grinned toothily, and Alejandra smiled back, as if it were meant for her.

He held her chair and seated himself, and the waiter brought a tray. Fresh house-specialty margaritas from the brunch cache, in slender, decorative glasses. Danny took one. Sipped. Savored. Swallowed. And watching Alejandra's face, he said to her, warm and relaxed, " _Dígame lo que necesita usted. Quizás yo le sorprenda._ "

Her expression changed, the surprise and curiosity almost funny to him. None of that patience remained, none of that pity. She was actually listening to him now, and Danny knew he could get the contract. He knew he _would_ get the contract. If only, he lamented, if only he could've told Julian. But he knew he'd never see him again. Julian had said so.

* * *

Of course, much later, in hindsight, Julian and Bean sleeping peacefully on either side of him (not counting Julian's occasional soft snores), Danny remembered:

Back then, Julian always had been quick with a lie.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Grateful thanks to Kay, Jill, and PFL, for all their help and encouragement.


End file.
